Website providers often wish to collect data that describes usage and visitation patterns for their websites and for individual webpages within the sites. This data is often referred to as web analytics data. Such information can be extremely valuable in developing usage statistics for various purposes, including for example estimating server load, determining advertising rates, identifying areas of websites that are in need of redesign, and the like.
Web analytics data is often collected via logfile analysis or page tagging. Logfile analysis includes reading logfiles that store a web server's transactions. Page tagging uses executable code on each webpage, such as Java Script, to notify a third party when a webpage is rendered by a browser. For example, the webpage may include a request to a web analytics provider that is embedded within the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) code. When the webpage is rendered by a browser at a user's computer, the request is transmitted to the web analytics, thereby notifying the web analytics provider of the rendering of the webpage. In some instances, the request includes a request for an image, and the web analytics provider simply returns a single transparent pixel for display by the browser, thereby fulfilling the request.
The request itself often includes web analytics data, such as data about the user, the user's computer, the content of the webpage, or any other web analytics data that is accessible and of interest. The web analytics provider may parse the request to extract web analytics data contained within the request. The collected web analytics data may be processed and provided to a website administrator for use in assessing and optimizing their website.
The webpage including the embedded request is typically provided via a content server operated, or at least under the direction of a content provider, such as an on-line vendor. In some instances, a webpage may include additional content that is integrated into the webpage, such as an advertisement provided by another content provider. Similar to the operator of the webpage, the provider of the additional content may also desire to collect web analytics data relating to their content and the user's interaction therewith and, thus, may desire to a send similar request to a web analytics provider to collect web analytics data. Unfortunately, providing multiple requests to the web analytics provider may impose additional difficulties, as the second content provider's request may need to be integrated into the webpage. For example, conflicts between multiple data points may needed to be resolved. If left unresolved, conflicts may result in one content provider's request overwriting data contained in another content provider's request, or the like. Moreover, the addition of multiple individual requests within the webpage may result in multiple requests being made to the web analytics provider. This can significantly increase the cost of collecting web analytics data as web analytics providers often charge a fee based on the number of requests.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide technique for integrating multiple requests to a web analytics provider into a webpage, including resolving conflicts between requests and/or reducing the number of requests made to the web analytics provider.